Amazon today announced a new on-demand service called Amazon Home Services. The service is an "invite-only marketplace" that offers hand-picked professionals to provide cleaning, TV installation, painting, plumbing -- that sort of thing. Amazon Home Services is now available in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and other major cities.

A Belgian IT company called Underside will let you try on the Apple Watch using augmented reality. They provide you with a special wristband to print, which you attach to your wrist like a watch. Then, you point your phone at the paper watch, and through the magic of augmented reality, becomes an Apple Watch. Taping on the screen lets you cycle through different watch and band combinations. You can get the app on the Underside web site.

April 24 is as good a date as any to peg as the day wearable computing goes mainstream.

The Apple Watch ships that day. Within a few days of its release—possibly within a few hours (thanks to preorders), Apple could ship more smartwatches than all the smartwatches that had previously shipped from all other companies.

Everybody is focused on whether the Apple Watch is the best or right watch compared with others, or whether the public will or will not re-acquire the habit of wearing a watch.

These are irrelevant considerations for IT managers who will have to cope with the parade of wearable devices that will pass through the corporate office doors.

The fact is that Apple's special combination of design, manufacturing prowess, fan-base, marketing and retail mojo, among other factors, is mainstreaming smartwatches next month and, with it by extension, the wearable computing category.

The rising tide of Apple Watch interest and sales will lift all wearables boats. The wearable revolution is finally upon us, and it's time to accept the idea that by the end of the year, wearable devices (mostly smartwatches, for now) will be very common in companies across the country and around the world.

It's time now for us to understand what a wearable computing device really is and why it's so different from all previous devices:

My house is filled with Apple products. I love Apple but the price tag they've put on this watch pisses me off. I told my wife I don't want one because of it and quite honestly I'm thinking about switching my household away from Apple. Some of these watches are priced $12,000 and one model $17,000. Ridiculous and greedy. I'll stick with my $100 Pebble thank you. ﻿

I don't do "access journalism." I am not in the industry, I'm not an investor or entrepreneur, but instead an independent, disinterested observer with strong opinions. (I have nothing against access journalism, it's just not what I do.)

After 10 years of blogging with conventional blogging sites and services, I abandoned that approach a year ago and started blogging on Google+. Why? Because Google+ is by far the best blogging platform. As Tim O'Reily said, it's like Tumblr 2.0, but more social.

I also cancelled my account with a leading photo-sharing and management site, and now use Google+ for that exclusively.

Luma Fitness cost us $232 per class. Here's why.
My wife and I signed up for a year at Luma fitness at the beginning of last year.
Luma Fitness limits the number of students per class. You have to sign up. If the class is full, you can't take that class.
And the classes are usually full. You can see this for yourself. For example, when I wrote this review on Saturday morning, you can see from my screenshot that every Sunday class that takes place at the gym is already full. (The only available classes are a trail running class -- we already trail run every day and don't need to pay a gym for that -- and a second class that's way above our fitness level.)
We work during the day, and want to work out after work. Those classes are the most unavailable, especially the ones at our fitness level.
We're very busy, and often had a hard time making time for the gym. But when we did find the time, we found that Luma Fitness classes were already full.
Because of that, we were able to attend only 10 classes for the year. We paid them $2,148 and used their gym 10 times.
The nightmare continued.
Our membership ended at the end of January. You have to give 30 days notice in writing to terminate the membership, which we did on January 6. Yet they're charging us for the full month of February. We called and argued with them about it, but they were horrible and nasty and insisted that we pay the full month, rather than honor their own contract of 30 days notice.
They KNOW we won't be using their gym for the month of February. They KNOW we paid them thousands of dollars without using their service much. But they are just taking our $179 for the month anyway.
I guess the $2,148 we paid for 10 classes wasn't enough, so they took more.
So now our grand total is $2,327 for 10 classes.
Instead of going to Luma Fitness, just flush $20 bills down the toilet twice a week. You'll save money, and you'll get more exercise.

• • •

Luma Fitness cost us $232 per class. Here's why.
My wife and I signed up for a year at Luma fitness at the beginning of last year.
Luma Fitness limits the number of students per class. You have to sign up. If the class is full, you can't take that class.
And the classes are usually full. You can see this for yourself. For example, when I wrote this review on Saturday morning, you can see from my screenshot that every Sunday class that takes place at the gym is already full. (The only available classes are a trail running class -- we already trail run every day and don't need to pay a gym for that -- and a second class that's way above our fitness level.)
We work during the day, and want to work out after work. Those classes are the most unavailable, especially the ones at our fitness level.
We're very busy, and often had a hard time making time for the gym. But when we did find the time, we found that Luma Fitness classes were already full.
Because of that, we were able to attend only 10 classes for the year. We paid them $2,148 and used their gym 10 times.
The nightmare continued.
Our membership ended at the end of January. You have to give 30 days notice in writing to terminate the membership, which we did on January 6. Yet they're charging us for the full month of February. We called and argued with them about it, but they were horrible and nasty and insisted that we pay the full month, rather than honor their own contract of 30 days notice.
They KNOW we won't be using their gym for the month of February. They KNOW we paid them thousands of dollars without using their service much. But they are just taking our $179 for the month anyway.
I guess the $2,148 we paid for 10 classes wasn't enough, so they took more.
So now our grand total is $2,327 for 10 classes.
Instead of going to Luma Fitness, just flush $20 bills down the toilet twice a week. You'll save money, and you'll get more exercise.

OK, I'm going to say something VERY controversial here. But it's my opinion that Pizzateca has the world's best pizza.
As the author of the book _American Pie_ says, the world's best pizza is usually the one you grew up with.
However, I have eaten at Bianco's Pizzeria in Phoenix, all the highest rated pizza places in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere, and this is the best I've had.
Most of the best places in America nail the toppings but fail on crust. They tend to use yeast-based leavening, which can only get you so far. Pizzateca, on the other hand, is doing something magical with the crust that involves 3 days of fermentation, according to the owner.
Specifically, Pizzateca's muchroom and garlic pizza is truly mind-blowing.
Please, do NOT fail to eat at this tiny joint if you're anywhere near Madrid, Spain.

• • •

OK, I'm going to say something VERY controversial here. But it's my opinion that Pizzateca has the world's best pizza.
As the author of the book _American Pie_ says, the world's best pizza is usually the one you grew up with.
However, I have eaten at Bianco's Pizzeria in Phoenix, all the highest rated pizza places in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere, and this is the best I've had.
Most of the best places in America nail the toppings but fail on crust. They tend to use yeast-based leavening, which can only get you so far. Pizzateca, on the other hand, is doing something magical with the crust that involves 3 days of fermentation, according to the owner.
Specifically, Pizzateca's muchroom and garlic pizza is truly mind-blowing.
Please, do NOT fail to eat at this tiny joint if you're anywhere near Madrid, Spain.